Historical Revisionism

One way to change the direction of a nation is to keep people ignorant. The public schools have done a great job in shifting worldview thinking from theism to humanism right under the noses of parents who extol the virtues of America's government education system.

Consider how textbooks handle the subject of religion in the founding of America. One elementary school social studies book has thirty pages of material on the Pilgrims, Paul Vitz writes, including the first Thanksgiving. But there is not one word (or image) that referred to religion as even a part of the Pilgrims’ life. One mother whose son is in a class using this book wrote . . . that he came home and told her that Thanksgiving was when the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians. The mother called the principal of this suburban New York City school to point out that Thanksgiving was when the Pilgrims thanked God. The principal responded by saying that was her opinion-- the schools could only teach what was in the books! I suspect that the teaching of America's Christian history has not improved much since Vitz did his study. In fact, it’s gotten worse.

When law professors get in the act of distorting the role that religion played in the founding of America, we are in serious trouble. It's these law professors who are teaching lawyers, some of whom will become judges and make rulings of what can and cannot be taught in our nation's schools.

One such professor is Geoffrey Stone, professor of law at the University of Chicago. Stone is an Editor of the Supreme Court Review and co-author of Constitutional Law, The First Amendment, The First Amendment in the Modern State, and The Bill of Rights in Modern Society. In other words, he carries a lot of legal clout. When he speaks, students listen. Who wouldn't with his credentials? His work is not confined to the classroom. He is a frequent author of op-eds in such journals as the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, and a regular writer for the ultra-liberal HuffingtonPost.com.

Stone is the master of the half-truth. It's not that the things he writes are always false; it's that he doesn’t tell the entire story. Those ignorant of America's Christian history will most often be persuaded by the arguments coming from a law professor like Mr. Stone. In fact, you might be one of them. Your children will be hit with a great deal of historical revision wherever they go to college. There's no doubt that they've already been indoctrinated without knowing it.

When an article Stone had written caught the attention of a Christian legal advocacy group, one of its representatives contacted me and asked if I would write a response. Historical Revision: An Attempt to Rewrite America's Christian History is the result. It’s a great way to be inoculated against the revisionists.


About the Author: Gary DeMar is the President of American Vision. Gary is a graduate of Western Michigan University (1973) and earned his M.Div. at Reformed Theological Seminary in 1979. In 2007, he earned his Ph.D. in Christian Intellectual History from Whitefield Theological Seminary. Author of countless essays, news articles, and more than 27 book titles. 

Specifications: e-Book (PDF download), 36 pages, 2009.